Welcome to the 2024 “Education” issue of COMO Business Times and COMO Magazine. If you could go back and do it all over, what would you change? Would you change anything? 

You’d think I would have learned something in my thirteen-year journey through public education. But, lo these many years later, the “official record” tells the uncolorful tale. (And who, at least back in the day, didn’t fear having something show up in his or her “official record?”) 

Let’s set the scene here. I do have those records, just as I have a complete, unabridged, incredibly self-incriminating journal of everyday of all four years of my high school career at Maries County R-II High School in Belle, Missouri. As a bound set of volumes, the work is called, “My Senior Drear,” recounting everything from the first hour of my freshman year to seventh hour of my senior year. 

At that time and for quite a while after, I was sure the collection would someday bear the same historical weight as Lewis and Clark’s journals. But now that I’m much older, maybe a bit wiser, and definitely unwilling to be held responsible for being such a self-absorbed punk, the hour-by-hour chronicle of those high school years are better off collecting dust. 

But I also kept most of my report cards, hall passes, and excused absence forms — collection required to avoid duplicating an insanely creative reason for leaving class or school — and other administrative records that may or may not have been obtained by legitimate means. 

Now let’s go back to where it all began: Kindergarten. The report card gave me a handful of “U” marks (for “unsatisfactory”) for civic or citizenship ratings. One of those “U” marks was for “practices self-control” and another was for “considerate of others,” with the added note, “Jodie has trouble keeping his hands to himself.” That was 1969, and the modern-day connotation of that comment wasn’t then what it is now. But it pretty much meant I demanded attention and got into everyone’s business. (It may also illustrate that this early propensity for not keeping my hands to myself is the reason why, in my now six decades of life, I have been bitten, stung, pierced, or gummed by more than ninety different kinds of animals.) 

So, what did my citizenship marks look like by the time I was a mature twelfth-grader at the aforementioned Belle High School? (One of fifty graduates of a class of 50.) I present my grade report for Band, for which I earned an A-minus for the second quarter — but also a trifecta of “U” marks for citizenship ratings. Want to guess what those were for? 

“Uses time to advantage”: U. “Accepts responsibility”: U. And, as proof that my citizenship was consistent from start to finish of my public-school career … “Practices self-control”: U. 

Now to top it off, this yearbook graduation message from my high school guidance counselor, the late great John Hamby: “With all I know about you, I could probably have you expelled or prohibited you from entering any college. But with all you know about me, I’ll probably never make good on that threat.” 

Somehow, I’ve made it to age 61 and fashioned a reasonably successful career in journalism. But if I had it to do all over again? Well, maybe I’d take things much more seriously. Or, even more likely, I’d have an absolute blast all over again. 

What choice would you make?